Hebrew calendar, oldest, 5770

[angryChineseKahanist]

Happy 5770.
It looks like the Hebrews have the oldest calendar, 5770.

[muman613]

Why are you wishing a happy new year when 5770 started last September?

[Rubystars]

Happy 5770.
It looks like the Hebrews have the oldest calendar, 5770.

I'm pretty sure there were calenders before that.

[muman613]

Happy 5770.
It looks like the Hebrews have the oldest calendar, 5770.

I'm pretty sure there were calenders before that.

I dont think that is what he was saying... This is one of the oldest calendars which is still used by a nation. The Jewish calendar keeping system was written in the Torah. It is a hybrid calendar based on the lunar cycle and adjusted to the solar cycle by leap months.

http://www.chabad.org/parshah/article_cdo/aid/2596/jewish/Lunar-Flood-Solar-Year.htm

The Jewish Calendar

Noah's Flood commenced on the 17th of Cheshvan in the year 1656 from creation, and ended on Cheshvan 27 of the following year.

The biblical commentaries explain that the Flood lasted exactly one year, and that the 11-day discrepancy in the dates represents the 11-day difference between the solar and lunar years.

This reflects the fact that different components of the calendar are based on a variety of natural cycles which do not easily lend themselves to synchronization. The month derives from the moon's 29.5 day orbit of the earth; the year, from the 365-day solar cycle. The problem is that 12 lunar months add up to 354 days -- eleven days short of the solar year.

Most calendars deal with this discrepancy by simply ignoring one or the other of the celestial timekeepers. For example, the Gregorian Calendar (which has attained near-universal status) is completely solar based. Its 365 days are divided into 12 segments of 30 or 31 days, but these "months" have lost all connection with their original association with the moon. There are also calendars (such as the Moslem Calendar) which are exclusively lunar-based, with months that are faithfully attuned to the phases of the moon. Twelve such months are regarded as a year, but these "years" bear no relation to the solar cycle (a given date in such a calendar will, in certain years, fall in the midst of summer and, in other years, in the dead of winter).

The Jewish calendar is unique in that it endeavors to reconcile the solar and lunar time-streams. By employing a complex 19-year cycle in which months alternate between 29 and 30 days and years alternate between 12 and 13 months, the Jewish calendar sets its months by the moon, its years by the sun, combining lunar time and solar time into a single system while preserving the integrity of each.

For the sun and the moon represent the two sides of a dichotomy which bisects virtually every aspect of our existence -- a dichotomy whose differences we must respect and preserve even as we incorporate them in a cohesive approach to life.

[muman613]

I think everyone knows that the mayans had a solar calendar... But are there a people who still live by the mayan calendar?

2012 is next year, then the mayan calendar will also expire...

And I just read about mayans... They were the prime example of idolators...

[angryChineseKahanist]

I'm not wishing happy new year, I'm just saying it's the oldest surviving calendar.

Although, I think the isreallites stole it from the evil black scientist yacomb, who had a much older calendar. By now, the negro calendar is probably the year 2000000. No, year 2111222333.